Writing Task 2: Problem & Solution Essay: Question 8
Syllabus W.task2
Despite living in close proximity to thousands of other people, many residents of large cities report feeling increasingly isolated and disconnected from those around them.
What problems does this growing sense of isolation cause, and what measures could be taken to address it?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience. Write at least 250 words.
Show worked solution Hide worked solution
Worked solution
Examiner notes: why this is a band 9 response
Task Response
The essay commits fully to the “problems then measures” structure the prompt demands: the first body paragraph develops both an individual-level problem (health) and a community-level problem (resilience), and the second answers with a matching pair of measures (funded hubs and communal urban design). The Larkbury case is used twice (first as evidence of the problem’s scale, then as proof the proposed measure works) which gives the response genuine depth rather than a list of disconnected generic claims.
Coherence & Cohesion
Paragraphing is purposeful, with topic sentences (“The most pressing problem is…”, “Several measures could meaningfully reduce urban isolation”) that make the essay’s logic visible at a glance, and a colon is used correctly to expand on “the erosion of community resilience” without a new paragraph break. Reference chains (“this isolation”, “Larkbury’s own pilot scheme”) replace the need for mechanical linking words.
Lexical Resource
The response uses precise, register-appropriate vocabulary (“chronic loneliness”, “overstretched healthcare services”, “erosion of community resilience”) and avoids repeating “lonely” or “isolated” by varying the phrasing throughout, with natural, accurately formed collocations such as “strip away” and “anchored their daily routine”.
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
A sophisticated range of structures is used with full control, including an opening adverbial (“Paradoxically, the density of a large city can coexist with…”), a non-defining relative clause (“one elderly participant named Frank”), and subordinate clauses expressing cause and result. There are no errors of tense, agreement or sentence boundary anywhere in the essay.
Common pitfalls specific to this task
See commonMistakes above: the most damaging is spending most of the essay explaining why cities feel impersonal rather than what harm that isolation actually causes. A band 9 response must keep its focus on consequences and concrete, city-level measures, not on individual behaviour change alone.